The Red Card Heard Round the World

Five minutes with Jake Tapper, and what I couldn’t fit in

Earlier today, I joined Jake Tapper on CNN’s The Lead to discuss the column I published here about Donald Trump’s call to Gianni Infantino over Folarin Balogun’s red card. Clip below.

Five minutes on cable go fast. You get maybe three complete thoughts if you’re disciplined, two if the anchor is good, and Tapper is very good. He pressed on the obvious question: whether this was politics contaminating sport, or just Trump doing Trump. The answer is yes. Here’s what I would have said with a sixth of a minute.

Between the column and airtime, the story got bigger. And uglier. When I wrote the piece, this was a phone call and a reversal. By Monday morning it was an international incident. UEFA, which does not issue statements about FIFA disciplinary decisions as a matter of routine, called the move “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable” and said FIFA had crossed a red line. The Belgian federation filed a formal challenge and FIFA swatted it away on standing grounds, ruling that Belgium was not a party to the proceedings. Which is technically true and completely beside the point. The team most directly harmed by the decision has no avenue to contest it. That is not a legal nicety. That is the tell.

And then Trump did the thing he always does, which is confirm everything while denying the implication. “All I did was ask for a review. I didn’t say, you have to do this.” He also said he didn’t know what a red card was. Both statements are doing work. The first establishes that the call happened. The second establishes that the substance of the call didn’t matter, because the substance was never the point. The point was that the president of the United States picked up the phone, and FIFA, for the first time since 1962, decided a World Cup red card would carry no suspension.

About that 1962 precedent, because it deserves more than a clause. The player was Garrincha, sent off in Brazil’s semifinal win over Chile and somehow cleared to play in the final, which Brazil won. Red cards didn’t carry automatic suspensions then, so a panel weighed the evidence and let him off with a warning. What greased the panel? Chile’s president co-signed a petition asking FIFA to let him play, and Peru’s president personally called the referee to talk down the incident. Presidents leaning on FIFA to keep a star on the field is not a new corruption. It is a 64-year-old one, dusted off and run again on American soil, with an American president making the call this time. History doesn’t repeat, but it apparently keeps FIFA’s number.

Infantino’s statement insisted FIFA’s judicial bodies are independent and operate autonomously. Maybe so. But independence that produces a first-in-64-years outcome within days of a presidential phone call is going to have trouble getting anyone to believe in the independence. Every controversial call for the rest of this tournament now carries an asterisk. England’s Jarell Quansah is sitting out a match for a red card of his own, and his federation apparently lacked the right phone number.

Balogun plays tonight against Belgium in Seattle. I’ll be watching as a fan, because I am one, and this team has been a joy. But I’ll also be watching as someone who has spent a career studying what happens to institutions when they bend for powerful men and then explain the bend as procedure. FIFA didn’t invent that move. It just executed it on the biggest stage in the world.

If you’re new here from the CNN segment, this is what I do most days. The full column that started this is here. Subscribe below and you’ll get the next one before it ends up on television.